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Friday, April 15, 2016

Dear Friends,I hope you are having a wonderful week in your part of the world! I have a special friend for you to meet today.

Lady is a 4 year old Dachshund/Terrier mix. She was rescued during a scary flood in Oklahoma. Even the animal shelter was flooding!

She is a very pretty girl, and we Dachshund/Terrier mixes have to stick together. Read on to learn more about Lady's dramatic story.

Abby: What is your background
and how did you end up in rescue?:

Lady: I’m not sure how I arrived at the rescue but
I wasn’t there very long until the heavy rains started to seep under doors and
before long it was flooding the aisles.

People who volunteered
at this shelter tried to get the cages out but soon the water was so deep that
they asked us to swim out. They watched us but I was able to swim and soon was
reached by someone on higher ground. They dried me and put me in a crate. Then
they took us to an old fire station that was on high ground.

The people who ran the
shelter sent word out on TV and begged people to please adopt us if they could
give us a good home.

A number of people
responded. I was a little afraid of some of the loud little people but then my
mom came in and she walked straight to me. She did some signing and then took me in
to get a shot. I wasn’t really afraid because she held me and I felt
loved.

Abby: How were your first days
at your new home?

Lady: My new home had two dogs
that lived there, both bigger than me. One was friendly but one was a little
unsure of me. My mom made sure I was not left alone with them until she was sure
they both accepted me.

Abby: What are a few of your
favorite things?

Lady: I love to have something
in my mouth. It may be a little piece of paper or a sock. I especially like
socks. Mom bought me a toy that I love to play with, throwing it in the air and
catching it.

Abby: Do you have any tips for
people who want to adopt a rescue pet?

Lady: I want my friends to
have someone who will not neglect their care. The people who rescue us should
love us but not just for a little while. We need a forever home and good food.
We want to be loved and will give our entire loyalty and love in
return.

Book Synopsis In
Depression-era Boston, a city divided by privilege and poverty, two unlikely
friends are bound by a dangerous secret. . . .

Maeve
Fanning, a first generation Irish immigrant, was born and raised among the poor,
industrious Italian families of Boston’s North End by her widowed mother.
Clever, capable, and headstrong, Maeve is determined to better herself despite
the hardships of the Great Depression. However, she also has a dangerous
fondness for strange men and bootleg gin—a rebellious appetite for experience
that soon finds her spiraling downward in New York City. When the strain proves
too much, Maeve becomes an involuntary patient in a remote psychiatric hospital,
where she strikes up a friendship with an enigmatic young woman, who, like
Maeve, is unable or unwilling to control her unladylike desire for freedom.

After
her release, Maeve returns to Boston to start over again, landing a job at an
antiques shop catering to the city’s wealthiest and most peculiar collectors.
Run by an elusive English archeologist, the shop is a haven for the obscure and
incredible, supplying one-of-a-kind artifacts to its customers while providing
Maeve with unique access into the world of New England’s social elite. While
delivering a purchase to a wealthy family, Maeve is introduced to beautiful
socialite Diana Van der Laar—only to discover she’s the same young woman from
the hospital.

Reunited
with the charming but increasingly unstable Diana and pursued by her attractive
brother James, Maeve becomes more and more entwined with the Van der Laar
family—a connection that pulls her into a world of moral ambiguity and deceit.
Bewitched by their wealth and desperate to leave her past behind, Maeve is
forced to unearth her true values and discover just how far she’s willing to go
to reinvent herself.

A
rich, universal story of ambition, transformation, desire, and
betrayal, Rare Objects is acclaimed writer Kathleen Tessaro’s finest
work to date.

Opening Rare Objects is like entering another world. This exceptionally engrossing novel will transport you to Boston in the 1930's. You will meet Maeve Fanning, who aspires to a life beyond her working class background, and who reinvents herself among the social elite in order to pursue a new future.

I love historical fiction and found the setting and time period of this book unique and interesting. I rarely seem to find historical fiction set during the Depression Era.

Maeve is an unusual character. I did not always like her, but I always found her interesting, and I kept reading to see what would happen next, especially as she began work at the antiques shop and met Diana again. Maeve's life in two worlds was fascinating. I felt a bit of anxiety at times, worrying about Maeve and her double life. As Maeve declares early in the novel: "... if you can convince others, there's a chance that someday you might just be able to convince yourself" (p. xiii).

As a lifelong fan of all things vintage and antique, and a vintage seller, I especially loved the details of the antique shop, with the rare objects there, and the map with pins detailing the travels of the shop's mysterious owner.

The writing is beautiful. I loved this passage, describing the antique shop, so much that I have to share it with you:

"There was a sense of solemnity and guardianship, like being in a library or a church. And like a church, the shop had a muted, far-removed quality, as if it were somehow both part of and yet simultaneously annexed from the present day. The essence of aged wood, silver polish, furniture oil, the infintesimal dust of other lives and other countries, hung in the air. I could feel its weight around me, and its flavor lingered on my tongue. Time tasted musty, metallic, and faintly exotic.

Almost everywhere else, time was an enemy, the thief that rendered food rotten, dulled the bloom of youth, made fashions passe. But here it was the precious ingredient that transformed an ordinary object into a valuable artifact - from paintings to thimbles" (p. 67).

The narrative of this story is so dense and detailed, but it moves quickly along, thanks to multi-faceted characters and well written dialogue.

Rare Objects is a rare book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Author Bio

Kathleen
Tessaro is the author of Elegance, Innocence, The
Flirt, and The Debutante. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
with her husband and son.

Find
out more about Kathleen at her website and connect with her on Facebook.

I received this book from TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

About Me

Trish is a long-time online seller who loves all things vintage, but especially vintage children's books and ephemera. In other lives, worked as a bookstore manager and preschool teacher. Always pursuing vintage treasures, great reads, interesting words, and happiness.